1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a continuous process wherein the packages are moved on a transport conveyor with a superimposed autorotation and the decorations are moved on a carrier conveyor tangentially past a transfer location with constant velocities, wherein at the transfer location the decorations are sequentially transferred to the packages through the application of pressure and heat.
The invention also relates to a corresponding apparatus having a driveable continuous transport conveyor with equally spaced, driveable and rotating receiving means for the packages, a driveable continuous carrier conveyor with equally spaced decorations, and a contact region between the transport conveyor and the carrier conveyor forming a transfer location, wherein there are disposed in the region of the transfer location means for applying pressure and means for heating the decoration.
Processes and apparatus of this type are used, for example, in the food and beverage industry for decorating packages made from paper, plastic, glass or metal.
The thermal transfer process is, for various reasons, rapidly emerging as the dominant process for decorating packages in the manner described above, overtaking other processes, for example labeling processes.
The decoration motif is pressed onto a carrier conveyor through conventional pressure techniques in such a way that the motif is attached to the carrier conveyor through an adhesive means with a smaller adhesive force and covered with another adhesive means with a larger adhesive force. A carrier conveyor set up in this fashion is brought in contact with the packages to be decorated. By applying pressure and heat in this contact region, the decoration is released from the transport conveyor and simultaneously bonded to the package. Heat is hereby supplied through the package.
This process can consequently only be used with packages with a large heat capacity, such as glass bottles.
2. Description of the Related Art
A continuous process and an apparatus therefor, wherein the thermal transfer process can also be used for packages with a smaller heat capacity, for example plastic packages, are described in DE 44 37 379.1. Herein, the carrier conveyor is separated into individual sections, with each section carrying one print motif, and transported to heated application segments which are arranged on an application transport means with equal spacing therebetween. The application transport means briefly captures the packages in such a way that one package is associated with each transport segment. The decoration is then transferred from the individual section to the package during the transport. This process, however, requires rather complex mechanisms due to the large number of discrete process steps.